Page:Colonization and Christianity.djvu/272

 their own. The monopoly of salt, opium, betel, and other commodities became a mine of wealth. The Company's servants could fix the price at whatever rate they pleased, and thus enhance it to the unfortunate people so as to occasion them the most intense distress. Fortunes were made in a day by this monopoly, and without the advance of a single shilling. The very Governor-general himself engaged in this private trade; and contracts were given to favourites on such terms, that two or three fortunes were made out of them before they reached the merchant. In one case that came out on the trial of Warren Hasings, a contract for opium had been given to Mr. Sullivan, though he was going into quite a different part of India, and on public business; this, of course, he sold again, to Mr. Benn, for 40,000l. ; and Mr. Benn immediately sold it again for 60,000l., clearing 20,000l. by the mere passing of the contract from one hand to the other; and the purchaser then declared that he made a large sum by it.

All these things put together, made India the theatre of sure and splendid fortune to the adventurer, and of sore and abject misery to the native. We have only to look about us in any part of England, but especially in the metropolis, and within fifty miles round it, to see what streams of wealth have flowed into this country from India. What thousands of splendid mansions and estates are lying in view, which, when the traveller inquires their history, have been purchased by the gold of India. We are told that those days of magical accumulation of wealth are over; that this great fountain of affluence is drained comparatively dry; that fortunes are not now readily